Battery-powered vehicles, such as forklifts, are in popular use in many warehouses, product distribution facilities, package-handling centers, and other industrial facilities. The batteries of such vehicles require charging and maintenance and are typically at least occasionally removed from the vehicles. Indeed, in some facilities, battery-powered vehicles are used in multiple shifts that divide the day. In many scenarios, it is desirable to continue use of a battery-powered vehicle while a spent battery is recharged. In a somewhat typical facility, spent batteries are periodically replaced in battery-powered vehicles, and the spent batteries are recharged while the vehicles are continuously used. Thus, downtime in the use of a battery-powered vehicle such as a forklift is minimized with regard to charging batteries.
Available resources for changing the batteries of battery-powered vehicles include racks for charging and storing batteries and various types of vehicles and assemblies for transporting batteries to and from the racks and the battery-powered vehicles. For example, overhead gantry cranes are used in some facilities to remove and replace the batteries of some forklifts. However, overhead access to the battery bay of a vehicle is required if a battery is to be suspended from the chain of a gantry crane and placed directly into the battery bay. A typical battery-powered forklift has a battery bay below the driver's seat, and has protective structural members, and perhaps a roof, disposed above the driver's seat. Some such forklifts have slots defined between the structural members to permit a chain to pass to the battery bay so that an overhead gantry crane can reach the battery. Others have battery bays that receive batteries from the side of the forklift. Thus, not all forklifts are easily serviced by use of an overhead gantry crane.
Where side-loading battery bays are found, inconveniences arise when available equipment does not vertically align with the height of the battery. In some facilities, multiple types of forklifts are found. Thus, it is common that risky ad-hoc solutions are attempted when forklift batteries are to be serviced. Personal injuries, equipment damages, and delays can occur when an industrial battery, which is typically very heavy, falls even a few inches.
Thus, improved battery-handling equipment and methods are needed. A battery-changing vehicle capable of retrieving a spent battery from, and delivering a charged battery to, a battery-powered vehicle is needed.